Why so many Christian Bash-fest Threads?

[99percentatheism]

Why are there so many threads that seem to be written just to insult and demean Christians?

Like this one:

Evangelical dishonesty
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Post 1: Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:04 am Post subject: Evangelical dishonesty

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It is not hard to find examples of dishonesty among prominent evangelicals - David Barton, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, the AFA, creationists (pick one), politicians (pick one), etc. When they are not straight up lying, they resort to half-truths, insinuation, out of context quotes or otherwise cherry picked evidence, and logical fallacies of every sort.

Why?

To me the answer is obvious: in the marketplace of ideas the 'biblical worldview' doesn't cut it. Science has usurped religious dogma as an effective means of describing reality. Evangelicals (fundamentalists, religious right, whatever) confuse their beliefs with faith, which requires no beliefs, and reject anything that challenges those beliefs. This is nothing new, but it has become ever more rampant in modern times as those beliefs face greater challenges. In reaction to these challenges evangelicals have created an alternate reality, an industry really, exemplified by Christian academies and universities, home schooling, pseudoscientific publishing houses, conservapedia, and Christian 'experts' of all sorts.

My favorite Christian radio host spends four hours every weekday misinforming his audience about every subject one could imagine. It pains me to know that so many people are taken in by his dishonest arguments.

(yes, I know this op is short on specific examples. I'm on an IPad and don't know how to paste them. If anyone thinks it's really necessary I'm sure that I could provide about a million of them. They're not hard to find.)

[otseng]

This is a debate forum. This is not a Christian love-fest forum.

The way to counter these accusations against Christians is not to complain about people bringing them up, but to correct those accusations. For example, in this thread, it's claimed that "religion has regularly fought against science." So, this claim was addressed (and I believe refuted).

People here are free to attack Christianity. Where it crosses the line is if forum members are personally attacked. If people outside the forum are attacked, then it's a judgment call on the moderator handling it.

[Philbert]

The core problem is that it is very much a part of the human condition for us to create personal identities out of our ideologies. Thus, any attack upon our ideology can be perceived as an attack upon us personally.

We see this personal identity process revealed in very common language such as....

"I am a Christian" or "I am an Atheist"

and so on.

Most of the passion in conversations on these topics is not really about the topic itself, but about our personal identities.

"I am an XYZ, therefore I am superior to an ABC."

If personal identity could somehow be surgically removed from the conversation, interest in these topics would largely dry up, and a thousand net forums would go out of business by the end of the month.

[Divine Insight]

Why are there so many threads that seem to be written just to insult and demean Christians?

But that's not what they are doing.

What they are doing is responding directly to the Christian doctrine that attempts to demean and bash them in the name of this fabled God.

Psalms:14:1: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

This scriptural verse claims that non-believers in God have done abominable works and there is non that doeth good.

That is a "bash-fest" against anyone who doesn't believe in God.

Moreover, clearly this is held up to even mean "The Biblical God". Because a belief in any God other than the one being portrayed in these stories is also considered to be blaspheme against this God, etc.

So this religious doctrine bashes everyone who doesn't believe in its claim to holding the copyright on God.

In the New Testament we see this sort of thing being regurgitated by the evangelist Paul with a vengeance in Romans:


Romans 1:
[28] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
[29] Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
[30] Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
[31] Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
[32] Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.


Here, he no only claims that non-believers of his God are evil haters of God, but he claims that they even take pleasure in hating this God.

This is disgusting religious propaganda IMHO.

It's totally untrue. People who do not believe in these Hebrew tales are not haters of God who take pleasure in doing evil things.

So this is why people strike back at these fables. These fables are making horrific false accusations toward them, so they quite naturally point out precisely how ignorant and deceitful these fables themselves actually are.

We also have the following:

Mark 16:16: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

John 3:18: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

If you merely don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God you are condemned already, and supposedly rightfully so.

That again, is more bashing against anyone who doesn't believe in these stories. The authors of these stories are themselves bashing anyone who refuses to believe their claims.

Christians naturally grab onto these types of scriptural claims and use them to accuse non-Christians of refusing to obey God, etc.

~~~~~

Are You in Denial?

I think this is a fair question. Are you in denial that many Christian evangelists and Christian political activists aren't using these very same scriptural accusations?

Just look at the Gay Marriage issue. The Christians are screaming that it's a "Sin against their God" and therefore they are accusing all these homosexual couples of being "Sinners" who are clearly rebelling against God, etc, just as the authors of the Holy Bible have accused them of.

Are you in denial that these people who are being accused of these things are not simply reacting accordingly?

They are acting in defense of these horrific accusations.

The Christians accuse them of being "sinners against God" which is a highly insulting accusation. And then the Christians claim to be insulted when these people point out to them the utter absurdities contained within the Holy Bible.

Moreover, let's not pretend that this ends with homosexuality. According to the Holly Bible anyone who merely doesn't believe in the God of the Holy Bible or that Jesus was God's special only begotten son, and all that entails, is also a "Sinner".

In other words, if the Christians intend on upholding the Bible as the "Word of God" they aren't going to be stopping with just objecting to homosexual relationships, they necessarily must carry these very same accusations over to everyone who doesn't believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that Jesus was his only begotten son.

So it's a never-ending war, between Christians and everyone who isn't a Christian. From the Christian viewpoint (according to their very own doctrine), the only end to this war will be when everyone has confessed that Jesus is LORD and all that entails.

~~~~~

So Christianity is innately an accusatory religion that, by its very doctrine that pretty much bashes and belittles everyone who doesn't believe in and worship this God.

It's fundamentally an anti-Christian bashing religion.

It bashes anyone who refuses to believe in Christianity and join and support the cult.

So how can anyone blame any non-Christian for not "bashing back".

I think this cartoon says it all.

[center][/center]

Christianity is a religion that is founded on a doctrine that basically bashes anyone who refuses to believe in Christianity as being an immoral person who is refusing to obey God and rejecting all that is good.

But as soon as the people who this religion bashes points out the absolute absurdities and ignorance within this religion, then they are accused of not giving this religion any respect.

This is totally hypocritical. The doctrine of Christianity has absolutely no respect for anyone who isn't a Christian.

Sure, individual "Christians" may claim that they have respect for non-Christians, but clearly the doctrine they worship does not. So there's clearly a problem there.

This is why I had quit associating with Christianity myself. How I can I support a religion that I fundamentally disagree with?

It seems to me that any Christian who supports Christianity is necessarily agreeing with it. Otherwise how can they claim to be supporting it?

How can you, as a Christian, proclaim that you don't belittle non-Christians when the very religion that you claim to support belittles non-Christians.

By your very action of supporting the religion you are necessarily supporting its religious bigotries.

There's no getting around that.

Otherwise, you are in self-conflict with the religious doctrine itself.

How can you claim to believe in a doctrine that you disagree with?

So Christianity itself is necessarily a non-Christian bashing religion.

To be a Christian and support Christianity is to automatically bash non-Christians via your support of these ancient scriptures as being the "Word of God".

And if you renounce that the Holy Bible is the "Word of God" then what justification do you truly have to even call yourself a "Christian"?

[puddleglum]

The Bible foretells that in the last days many will depart from the faith and believers will be persecuted. There are many parts of the world where Christians suffer much worse things than being insulted on forums.

http://www.opendoorsusa.org/

http://www.persecution.com/

[Ooberman]

Why are there so many threads that seem to be written just to insult and demean Christians?

I think it's backlash against the assertion by the religious that we must respect thier beliefs.

Part of the "culture war" is in demonizing the opposition. The religious have had multiple generations of declaring the non-religious ''fools" and evil. Even "demonic" or "demon possessed".

If there is some blowback to level the playing fields, it's to be expected. Christianity has no privileged position. It has no logical or moral superiority. It is one of a vast number of ideas in the war of ideas.

However, we are conditioned from birth to treat the religious (and their ideas) as something special. We are taught to feel that nuns and priests are special in their Holiness.

But Holiness is a sham. It's nothing more than someone claiming to be better because they chose a religion and stuck with it. There is no intrinsic value in Holiness.

If there are threads that attack Christianity, perhaps the question is not "Why?" but "What about Christianity justifies these attacks?"

[Divine Insight]

The Bible foretells that in the last days many will depart from the faith and believers will be persecuted.

But that has always been true.

In fact, when I argue that Christians were persecuting non-Christians in the early days one the first thing the Christians do is scream that Christians were being persecuted by non-Christians too in the early days.

So evidently this has been an ongoing thing from the very beginning.

Religions have been well-known for persecuting each other.

In fact this is a very powerful argument that the atheists often put forward.

Religions tend to be the root cause of hostility and persecution in many cases.

So claiming that this fulfills some "prophecy" of the end days is truly a joke. It's just the natural state of things and always has been.

We don't see any dramatic changes in this at all.

This sort of violence has been going on in the name of God throughout history.

Just look at how many women the Christians had burned alive as "witches".

Christianity has always been an extremely barbaric and violent religion persecuting others in Jesus' name.

It's time to put these ancient barbaric religions behind us and move forward toward a genuinely civilized modern world based on real education and real truths, instead of on superstitious jealous-God fantasies.

[Philbert]

Although "religion" and "Christianity" are single words, they don't refer to a single thing.

Religion is probably the biggest cultural event in human history, and it's sweeping scale makes any simplistic dualistic description pretty close to impossible.

Within any of the major religions at least, there are bozo looney tune cartoon characters, and some really impressive people, and everything in between.

Even if we want to boil it down to just the official religious ideology, that's not so easy either. Here's an example.

Usually when people refer to Catholic ideology, they mean the official policy statements that come out of the Vatican.

Who exactly is the Vatican and clergy? A bunch of fellas who appointed themselves to be leaders.

If I appoint myself the leader of this forum, give myself an official title and a wear a fancy costume, does that settle the matter, and make me the leader of this forum? Are my statements now official policy here? Obviously not.

Within Catholicism there are all kinds of people, from rigid right wing traditionalists to liberal social action progressives. They come in every flavor and combination possible.

The reality of Catholicism is that it's more like an environment than a single ideology. The same can be said of religion generally.